Pictures & Records (5)

Stories

"A huge object larger than a 6-room house flew over her house from behind trees..."

This must have been quite a spectacular show as a large Close Encounters of the Third Kind type UFO flew around for longer than 10 minutes "emitting violet to red lights in revolving fashion". This event was exclusive to a single person. The whole episode unfortunately ended rather abruptly as the space ship suddenly "shot upwards 'like lightening' ".

Another episode was recounted in the same article at a different time. This one had "a red glow" and was travelling rapidly from "east to west". It was seen by a couple on their way home and they were "sure it wasn't an airplane".

This second story gets better as the couple saw a second object emitting "red and white lights" as it zig-zagged across the sky. These people told the tale to others at the time who also witnessed the events including its flight pattern. "It was zig-zagging, funny-like" and apparantly changed colors, "red, then white" and made no sounds recalled a 17-year old high school senior.

The people in the second story were very curious about the whole event and waited around, hoping the object would land so they "could see what it looked like".

"Let's just hope they're on our side"

Another sighting on July 31 of a UFO. A light "flashed across the sky", and then he saw a "round object" with a tail. To get another witness he "woke up [his] son who was sleeping under the barn shed where [he] was curing tobacco" to take a look at it. Maybe there was too much tobacco in use that night. In any case, this is another great witness of extraterrestrial events.

Unlike the Project Blue Book, these accounts come attach with names of the the witnesses. In this case it was Willie Stovall of Virgilina, VA.

UFOs are merely flying ants?

Not everybody is seeing extraterrestrial events. And others are convinced that no one is seeing them. An Associated Press release from Denver contends that perhaps these sightings are "merely flying ants or other insects with a 'glow' on". This far fetched story went so far as to claim that "other scientists have said that the shiny-bodied insects might be mistaken during daylight for flying saucers". Those must be mighty large insects.

One fascinating piece of information provided by this article was that 7% of UFO sightings reported to the United States Air Force are admitted as unexplainable.

Homemade weather balloon sighted

The United States Air Force has explained many of the reported UFO sightings as weather balloons (check out the Project Blue Book for examples). In the case reported in this article, however, the balloon wasn't really necessarily a weather balloon, but a homemade balloon using birthday candles.

This UFO was sighted by many in the area and one man went so far as to claim it was "fifty feet long with flashing lights".

"He wasn't expecting the Russians to land anytime soon"

A little over a month after Sputnik was launched by the Russians, people were still seeing unidentified flying objects. It is doubtful from the description that this was in fact Sputnik. It was described as having "reddish, bluish, pink, and orange" colors, and acting "much like an exploding Roman candle". It was doubtful that Sputnik was meant to look like fireworks, but who knows?